Scathing takedown of everyone at club after Thursday night’s 4-2 win over Spurs a curious reveal
Guardiola is no scheming managerial Machiavelli but he is a clever man who knows that the way City stank out the Etihad Stadium in the first half to trail 2-0 was the latest in a concerning sequence of displays that caused losses to Brentford and Manchester United and a draw with Everton in the taking of seven points from the previous 15 available.
If Tottenham deserve plaudits for crowding out the hosts inside their own territory when in possession before the interval, it was still strange to witness Guardiola’s usually fluid, ruthless blue machine being unable to beat the initial press as they so often do via their high-end technique and clever movement.
The decision to call out the very constituency all managers’ job security hinges on — his players — might be analysed as brave, foolhardy, a gamble or puzzling. Perhaps all. Particularly when he skewers, too, the home faithful for being “silent for 45 minutes — I want them back” – the club staff and the “whole organisation” in a diatribe delivered with a scattergun mix of passion, disdain, urgency and humour and which ended with the memorable scoff that City are a “happy flowers” team.
This brings us to the searing question: why did he do it? Why turn the cannons on your own? A glance at the table shows City’s victory takes them five points behind Arsenal, who have played a game fewer. If City beat Wolves on Sunday, then Manchester United defeat the leaders later that afternoon, the gap is two. But Guardiola snorted at this glass-half-full scenario: “We have an opponent in Arsenal who have the fire. Two decades without winning the Premier League. I am explaining the reality.
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